DAY 300: Anam 118-127

• DAY 300: Anam 118-127

   So eat only of what is slaughtered in Allah’s Name if you truly believe in His revelations. What should cause you to avoid eating of that upon which the name of Allah has been invoked, while He has spelled out to you all that He has made unlawful for you, except that to which you are compelled by extreme necessity? Surely, there are many who misguide people on the basis of their desires without having knowledge. Surely, your Lord is the best knower of those who cross the limits. Shun all sin—open and secret. Indeed, those who commit sin will be punished for what they earn. Do not eat of what is not slaughtered in Allah’s Name. For that would certainly be ˹an act of˺ disobedience. Surely the devils whisper to their ˹human˺ associates to argue with you. If you were to obey them, then you ˹too˺ would be polytheists. Can those who had been dead, to whom We gave life and a light with which they can walk among people, be compared to those in complete darkness from which they can never emerge? That is how the misdeeds of the disbelievers have been made appealing to them. And so We have placed in every society the most wicked to conspire in it. Yet they plot only against themselves, but they fail to perceive it. Whenever a sign comes to them, they say, “We will never believe until we receive what Allah’s messengers received.” Allah knows best where to place His message. The wicked will soon be overwhelmed by humiliation from Allah and a severe punishment for their evil plots. Whoever Allah wills to guide, He opens their heart to Islam. But whoever He wills to leave astray, He makes their chest tight and constricted as if they were climbing up into the sky. This is how Allah dooms those who disbelieve. That is your Lord’s Path—perfectly straight. We have already made the signs clear to those who are mindful. They will have the Home of Peace with their Lord, Who will be their Guardian because of what they used to do.
  (
      Practical Legislation: Belief in Allah directly impacts actions like eating, requiring the pronouncement of His name.
      Spiritual Reality: Faith is true life and light, while disbelief is a state of death and darkness.
      Divine Sovereignty: Allah chooses where to place His message and guides whom He wills by opening their hearts, while misguidance is a sealing of hearts that are arrogant and closed.
      The Ultimate Goal: The journey of following the straight path, in belief and practice, culminates in the eternal "Home of Peace" with Allah.
  
      This passage establishes that true belief in Allah's oneness must govern practical life, beginning with following His dietary laws, and it contrasts the spiritual state of the believer—who is granted the light of guidance and a path to the eternal Home of Peace—with the disbeliever, whose heart is constricted by arrogance and whose schemes are led by devils.
     
  )